Static
by bulletproof
Summary: Nothing is static; everything is falling apart. B/A. Post-'The Gift'. Stream-of-consciousness in third person. Beware the time-line jumps.


s t a t i c . . . by bulletproof 

**s t a t i c**   
by bulletproof (bulletproof_android@yahoo.com)   
characters owned by joss whedon.   
stream-of-consciousness told in the third person. beware the timeline jumps. 

_

"Nothing is static.   
Everything is falling apart."

_   
- Chuck Palahniuk's 'Fight Club' 

They walked astride, but never, never together. 

This is Buffy. This is Angel. This is the unspoken agreement that keeps them apart. 

They'd perfected this. Developed a tight-lipped politeness that kept speaking curt and easy. Developed the perfect walk, an occasional twist of her shoulder, an occasional bend in his step, and the minimum ten-centimetre barrier was kept between them. 

It had been this way for an age. Started one grey September dusk when he'd laid their ring goodbye on her grave and the earth unceremoniously spewed her forth. 

Everyone was overjoyed. Wasn't it great that she was back? In the same town as him, even. On the same patrols, on the same streets... in the same house. 

Well, yes, it was great, and yes, he was overjoyed. 

So everyone got afraid instead. He wasn't *too* overjoyed now, was he? He wasn't thinking about sharing said joy with her, *in* her, was he? 

Heck, no, he didn't think about how happy he was at having her in his life again. No, he didn't think of making animal-rutting, bone-melting, soul-evacuating love to her all day, everyday. 

Liar. 

But what else was there to do? 

***** 

"We're not friends." She'd said after a friendly little reminder from Spike. 

All the 'how was your day's, all the 'do you want to go out for ice-cream's, all the inane little filler comments flew out his vocabulary right there and then. 

They weren't friends. Lovers. Enemies. 

They were nothing. 

Not that that'd stopped her from walking straight past him and moving her suitcase into his mansion. Her mountains and mountains of boxes. Memorabilia of the reminiscing soul she no longer seemed to be. 

She and Dawn had moved in with him. For convenience. For moving on. She couldn't stand the sight of her mother's house any longer, she'd said. She was throwing the past to the wayside. 

But the boxes stayed where she'd left them in the middle of Angel's lounge. She stayed living in the room right next to his. Sleeping in the bed they used to share. 

And so a precarious status quo was forcibly developed. 

He remembered but didn't remember. He wanted her but didn't want her. He loved her but... 

Well surely he couldn't love her. No, that way lies danger. 

Could not love. Could not want. Could not remember. 

They were not friends. They were nothing. 

They still fought the same battles, won the same wars. They shared the same meals and kissed the same cheek when wishing Dawn a goodnight. 

But not once did they look one another in the eye. 

***** 

They were both night people. They both slept at the same time, kept about the same time schedule. Yet never more than a necessary word passed between them. 

"Would you just... say something?" Dawn had sighed exasperatedly earlier that evening, not looking up from her peas and mash. 

"Who, sweetie?" Buffy asked, reaching a hand across the kitchen table. 

"Both of you... either of you," she cried, setting her fork down, "You both live in the same house and neither of you can say anything civil to one another." 

"We're civil." Angel defended behind the thin, impenetrable wall of his evening news. 

"Well, fine. You're too civil. It's always, 'When's dinner', 'Where's Dawn?' or 'Have you sharpened enough stakes?'." She complained, rolling her eyes, "Y'know, whatever happened to 'How was your day?' or 'Let's all go out for ice-cream after school..." 

Angel raised his head from his paper. 

"Or some other time when Angel is less likely to burst into flames. Whatever. It's nuts; you've both been living together for six months and you haven't told her your soul is permanent..." 

Angel set the newspaper down, rolling his eyes at her in turn. 

Eeep. 

"My bad." Dawn offered meekly, ducking her head. 

Buffy's knife clattered on the table. 

"Your soul is permanent and you didn't feel like telling me?" 

Angel shrugged, standing, stacking the used plates, "I felt it was the kind of thing that not-friends happen to *not* tell each other." 

"Your *soul* is *permanent* and you didn't feel like telling me?" she repeated in a raised voice, plates shattering against the wall behind him on the word 'soul'. 'Permanent'. 

Dawn left the house feeling paradoxically lighter. Raised voices. Smashing plates. Emotional carnage. Now *that* was normal Buffy and Angel behaviour. 

Neither of them noticed she had gone. 

Angel sighed, tired, "What do you care, Buffy?" 

"You asshole, what do you *think* I care about?" 

"Well these days, it's kinda hard to tell. You move out of your old house and keep Mr Gordo in a box. You're treating the past like a skeleton in the closet." 

"Yeah, but at least it's still there." Buffy shouted back, arms gesturing wildly at the boxes in the other room. "At least I didn't set them on fire and get rid of them completely." 

"Oh, so you're saying I should be glad my ass isn't a pile of dust right now?" 

"Shut up!" She screamed just as the phone shrieked in kind. 

"What?" he snap, snap, snapped like an alligator. An agitated alligator on a very short leash. 

"Geez, grumpy much? Y'know that kinda tone isn't the first thing a girl wants to hear after she's had a mind-numbing, brain-crushing vision." 

He sighed, deflated, "I'm sorry Cordelia, what is it?" 

"Dead people. Lots of them. That is, if you don't stop arguing with Buffy like a bunch of five year olds and haul ass to Restfield cemetery." 

"Cordy we were not-" 

"Please. I saw the broken pieces of the *very expensive* plate and bowl set *I* got you for Christmas. Nothing gets past Vision Girl, Mister. Now get out there and kick some Maheedjan butt!" 

"Maheedjan?" 

"I dunno, scrawny thing with absolutely no dental hygiene whatsoever. Slime all over its gums. Yick. Wesley says stick an axe through its head, should get the job done." 

"Thanks." He mumbled, setting the receiver back in its cradle. 

"Where?" she asked, shooter-sharp and emotionless, weapons bag already in hand. 

"Restfield." 

"Right." She acknowledged, no fuss, no bloody muss, stalking out the door as he grabbed his great coat from the sofa and followed. 

***** 

And so there they were, walking, stalking astride, but un-together, un-friends, un-angry. 

Bullshit. 

He couldn't look at her because he was starting to remember again. Starting to want her. Starting to... 

No, damnit, no. 

But God, the way her eyes covered him with something as naked, as angry as lust. The way her breath flickered and caught with his every move. Everything was slowly breaking down the door to his locked away memories. He could almost remember the way she tasted... 

Shut up. Eyes ahead, keep a straight line. They were patrolling. Right. They were nothing. 

Now what was the name of that demon again? 

"Maheedjan," Buffy whispered under the air, below radar, creeping under his skin, "11 o'clock." 

He turned the direction of her stern gaze and the beast did indeed that way lie. 

"What's the plan?" he asked, business-like, short, terse to keep double-meaning to a minimum. 

She turned to him and her eyes were a storm, a myriad of emotion and fire, "Fight the good fight. Live the good life... And kick your ass all the way back to Galway if you pass this off as nothing tomorrow." 

Meaning slapped him stunned as she flew into battle, a beautiful tangle of brute power and lethal grace. He watched as she slid, slipped into exact place, right in its face, in the midst, in the heat of the kill, dagger threading, twisting into sinew and muscle and heart. 

It occurred to him now that he hadn't actually told her how to kill the beast. 

With an ancient cry summoned from the depths of the earth, he jumped in after her, axe swinging wildly, precisely, down the exact center of the Maheedjan's skull, down the exact center the Maheedjan's body. 

Two halves of one beast fell around them as they, the two halves of the beast that brewed between them came together, mouths and paws clawing at each other, devouring, enflaming, creating a yet more powerful hunger. 

Lips bruised, fingers bruised and the only direction they knew was in, I want to be in you, I want to be of you. In. 

They found the ground and clawed and clawed and clawed until clothing was no longer an issue, until ten-centimetre barriers were no longer effective, until 'in' was no longer an imperative but an actuality. 

In alternated with out alternated with in alternated with out until motion was not direction but a mere blur, an emotion, a high, an incredible, unending, unnerving, stinging, numbing, supercalafrajalistic high. 

An explosion and a calm. 

A breath, "We're not friends," and a sigh. 

No. They were something much simpler than friends. Much baser. Much deeper and sinister and unamicable, like drive and blood, like resonance and marrow. Shaking and shivering, hungry and irrational. Their connection was a beast. 

A breath, "Definitely not," and a sigh. 

Motion began to stir, the blur began to hum and the beast started to quiver. 

A giggle and a growl and the immortal words, "Do you want to go again?" 

**END   
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